Snowed (11 page)

She said, “I thought you might like some tea.”

“Thanks.” He slid a film magazine onto the back of the camera.

She noticed he was balancing his weight gingerly. Earlier she’d rewrapped his ankle. The swelling was beginning to recede, but the skin was still badly discolored. “And I brought aspirin. When was the last time you took aspirin?”

“You’re mighty strict,” he teased.

“That’s some fire you have going.” A log blazed in the fireplace, making the room pleasantly toasty. “You cold?” She pressed a hand to his forehead. “You don’t have a fever.”

“I’m fine. Just wanted it warm in here. Come here. Sit on the window seat. I have to get a light reading.”

“Oh. Okay.” She put the tea and aspirin on the mantel and sat down. He took a light meter out of the metal case and held the small black contraption near her face. He pushed a button and looked at the reading. Then he replaced the meter in the case and faced her, peering down into the hood of the camera. The strobe flashed as he pressed the shutter release.

She tensed. “What
—
what are you doing?”

He didn’t look up from the camera. “You’re a bright girl. Can’t you figure it out?”
Click
. The strobe flashed again and he moved in, favoring his sprained ankle.

“I
—
I didn’t know you were going to
—
”

“Who did you think I was going to shoot
—
Stieglitz?”
Click
.

She stood. “You could’ve asked.” She started to move past him.

He reached out to intercept her and she smoothly evaded his grasp, pleased with herself until she realized the maneuver had caused him to stumble onto his right foot. She caught his arm just as his leg began to buckle, his face taut. In the same instant her other hand flashed out to steady the camera he held. He quickly recovered, standing erect once more, but she could tell the effort took more out of him than he wanted to show.

“You’ve got good instincts,” he said tightly, indicating the camera. “This Hasselblad is my baby. Wouldn’t take kindly to being dropped.”

“You shouldn’t be on your feet, James.”

“I haven’t worked in three days and I’m beginning to climb the walls. Won’t you take pity on a poor, work-starved, crippled artist?”

She didn’t want to admit how uncomfortable she was with the idea of being photographed by James. It was almost as if he could see right into her soul when he looked at her through his precious Hasselblad. “I don’t know.” Her hand went to her bruised cheek. “My face...”

“Your face is lovely. And the bruise is fading.” Tenderly he kissed the spot. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, Leah.” His voice was even lower than usual as he ran his fingers through her long hair. “Old Torquemada himself couldn’t have devised a torture worse than imprisoning a photographer with such a beautiful woman and forbidding him to capture that beauty for posterity.”

She smirked at the syrupy flattery. “You’re a self-serving cur, Mr. Bradburn.”

“I suppose I am. But you know what I’ve noticed?” He limped closer, and closer still, slowly inching her back to the window seat. She tried to ignore the scent of his fresh-washed skin and the warmth of his body, which reminded her all too vividly of last night.

He said, “The most exquisite women are the ones who have no inkling of how beautiful they are.”

Leah wanted to say,
I’m not beautiful,
but she knew that would have seemed like fishing for a compliment. She held his azure gaze and kept her mouth firmly shut.

“Yours is the kind of beauty that begins with the eyes,” he said, still inching her back. She was afraid to stop his progress for fear he’d fall again. The exasperating man was probably counting on that, she thought as she suddenly felt the edge of the window seat at the back of her knees. He put a large hand on her shoulder and exerted gentle pressure. She sat.

He backed up a bit and began shooting again. She noticed that when she moved, first looking down, then away, he said nothing, made no attempt to pose her. He simply followed her movements with his camera as if stalking her. The strobe flashed with each click of the shutter.

“Now, is it so terrible modeling for me?” He grinned.

“Depends on how much you’re paying.”

He laughed, a deep, delicious sound that warmed her to her toes. “A woman with her eye on the bottom line. I find that sexy as hell.”

She bit her lip.
This woman has her eye on the bottom line every time you turn around, Mr. Bradburn.

“Tell you what,” he continued. “In exchange for your cooperation as a photographic model, I’m willing to offer a few days of room and board in a glamorous Gold Coast mansion. How’s that sound?”

“Like coercion.”

He shrugged and peered down into the camera hood again. “I’ve got a reputation as a self-serving cur to uphold.”

And doing a damn fine job of it, too,
she thought. She held her head a little higher and looked directly into the camera. “You said Renee was a model. She must’ve been very beautiful.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I am not.”
Damn him!
“What kind of modeling did she do?”

“Fashion ads mostly. Some magazine covers. You’d recognize her.” He reached out and gently turned her face for a profile shot. His fingertips were slightly rough, like a cat’s tongue. She took a deep breath, trying to redirect her thoughts from tongues, callused fingers, and the bottom line.

She cleared her throat. “What did she look like?”

“Renee was tall
—
five ten. She had incredibly long legs and huge violet eyes.”

Glad you asked?
she chided herself. “Was she a brunette?” An image of Cindy Crawford came to mind.

“No. She had red hair, a lovely natural auburn, and she wore it very short.”
Click
.

“No wonder she was a model. She sounds perfect.”

“She wasn’t.”

“No, I mean physically.”

“So do I. Physically she wasn’t perfect. It’s in the eyes, like I said. Her beauty never reached her eyes.”

“Even her ‘huge violet’ ones?” she asked, alarmed at the catty tone of her own voice.

He looked up and smiled. “Eyes are the doorway to the soul, Leah. You know that.”

Right. I know that.
She squirmed and looked away, concentrating on counting the tiny ceramic tiles surrounding the fireplace. Why was he keeping this room so darn hot? She asked, “What did you see when you looked into Renee’s soul?”

“Oh, I saw Chanel and Lagerfeld and Cartier and Gucci.”

“Sounds like it was pretty crowded in there.”

“More crowded than you know. There were a few lovers in there, too.”

She gasped and he laughed. She felt her cheeks grow warm again.

Click. Flash.
“Seems I got myself snowed in with an old-fashioned girl. No wonder I can’t get anywhere with you.”

“You don’t have to make fun of me.”

“Did you know your accent becomes more pronounced when you’re angry?” He looked up and smiled with boyish charm. “I’m not making fun of you. Really.”

“Were you unfaithful to her?”

“No.”

She was irrationally relieved. “Well, sir, it would seem I’ve gotten myself snowed in with an old-fashioned boy.” He grinned and kept shooting. Her eyes followed him as he moved with each shot. “Is that why you hated her, because she was unfaithful?”

He didn’t respond, didn’t even change expression, as if he’d been expecting the question. He removed the used film magazine from the camera’s back and slid a fresh one into place.

“Take off your clothes, Leah.”

 
“What!”

“I want to do some figure studies.”

Speech evaded her for several seconds. Finally she sputtered, “No!”

“Leah, you’re lovely, you’re graceful
—
sitting, walking, whatever. Hell, you’re even graceful getting splashed with bourbon. I wanted to shoot you from the moment we met.”

The desire was mutual, she thought.

“Besides,” he continued, “the light is perf
—
”

“The hell with the light. And the hell with my
—
my
—
grace. The answer is no. I’m an old-fashioned girl, remember?”

The way he was looking at her just then, she didn’t feel so old-fashioned. She wondered how much he remembered of the previous night.

“I do this all the time,” he said.

She knew that was true enough. His nudes were wonderful—powerful and evocative. Never gratuitous. But they weren’t of her. “I...just can’t.”

He sat next to her and put an arm over her shoulder.
Don’t bother getting brotherly now,
she thought, edging away from him. “Think of me as a doctor, Leah. You take your clothes off for the doctor, don’t you?”

She leveled a withering stare at him. “My doctor is about a hundred years old and half-blind. And she doesn’t kiss as well as you do.”

His eyes glowed. “You like the way I kiss?”

She realized the hem of her loose yellow sweater was slowly crawling north. She put a restraining hand on his, feeling ridiculously insecure wearing no underwear
—
both bra and panties had been washed out and were drying over the bathtub.

Her eyes narrowed. “That’s why you have this place heated up like a sauna, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t want you to get cold.”

Ever the gentleman. “You could’ve told me what you had in mind in the beginning.”

“Would you have stayed?” he asked.

“Hell no.”

“I rest my case.” He was silent a moment, then suddenly stood and began unbuttoning his shirt.

She eyed him warily. “What are you doing?”

“You should feel honored.” He tossed the shirt aside. There was no undershirt, just his perfect bronze torso over faded jeans.

Which he unzipped.

She jumped up. “Now, wait a
—
”

“I never let anyone photograph me. Never. There are people who’d give their firstborn for an opportunity like this.”

She’d wondered why she hadn’t seen a picture of James Bradburn prior to crashing his party. Now she knew why. “You don’t have to get nekkid,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

“One must be nekkid for a figure study, Leah,” he said solemnly, and started to push his jeans down.

“Don’t! Please.” She put a restraining hand on his arm, and her eyes sought understanding in his. Despite what happened the night before, her natural modesty rebelled at the thought of posing nude while he photographed her. Or of photographing him that way.

Her throat tingled with the heat of a damnable blush, which worked its way north with alarming speed. It was at moments like this that she wished she had James’s swarthy coloring.

Thankfully, she found the understanding she prayed for in the softening of his expression. His wide mouth turned up slightly and he ran his cool knuckles up her scorched throat to her cheek. Never relinquishing her gaze, he adjusted the waistband of his jeans and zipped them. She let out the breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

His tender expression slid into a full-blown grin. “If you blush any harder, you’ll explode.”

The swine. “Thanks so much for pointing that out.”

He picked up the camera and placed it in her hands. “I want you to try your hand at this, Leah. Are you familiar with a single-lens reflex?” When she hesitated, he said, “That’s okay. It’s simple. You just aim the camera and look down through the hood, then focus with this ring here and press this little button. Got that?”

“Uhh...”

“Good. Stand here. Okay now. Shoot.”

She stared down into the hood, then peered closer. James had the most magnificent torso she’d ever seen.

“Come on, Leah. It’s rude to make a model wait.”

Hastily she groped with her index finger until she found the shutter release. The strobe flashed and she jumped.

“Great,” he encouraged. “Try a different location. Keep going. Don’t lose momentum.”

She shuffled a couple of feet to the side, her eyes still directed at the camera. She cracked up. He’d assumed the absurdly exaggerated hip-jutting pose of a female model, right down to the come-hither expression. She grinned and clicked off the shot, moving in closer for the next one.

He flexed like a bodybuilder and assumed a Mr. Universe pose, muscles rippling. She giggled. The strobe flashed. She backed up to take the shot again, wanting to make sure she got all of him in the picture. Good Lord, he was beautiful. Just like Michelangelo’s
David
. Without warning, she was struck by the memory of how he’d been the night before. Unbridled ...insatiable. Hard.

Click. Flash.

She looked up from the camera and smiled shyly.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

She nodded. “Lie on the window seat, James.”

His eyebrows rose, but he obeyed. Sunlight caressed his body like a lover’s fingers, highlighting his perfect contours and glinting on his chest hair. She found it hard to believe that a man who looked like James could want her in the way he did.

Leah moved to where the shot seemed composed perfectly, focused, and clicked. “Put your hands under your head,” she ordered. He did, resting his head comfortably on his interlaced fingers as if he were lounging at a picnic.

She clicked the shutter and moved in toward his face. When only his chest and head were framed in the shot, she pressed the shutter release again. He stared at her with a pure blue gaze of wonder and affection. The sunlight penetrated his eyes, seeming to light them from the inside, as if she could see straight through to his...

He smiled at her. So sweetly. Only then did she realize she’d been staring, mesmerized. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Leah. I think you have a gift for this.”

She returned his smile and moved in for a close-up of his face, of his eyes, hoping to capture his elusive soul.
Click. Click. Click.

“Now it’s your turn,” he said. He sat up and took the camera from her, his voice low and beguiling. “I wish you’d reconsider.” He tugged playfully on the sleeve of her sweater.